Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 4, 1925 — page 89: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

PAGE ROMEO! finger nail scissors, shoe hook and button horn—something that I] look nice for a lady's birthday present.’’ ‘A Jadv!” I murmured. maybe?” “] said it was for her birthday,” he ex- plained, facetious. ‘* Old ladies don’t have birthdays.” ‘Oh, a girl, then,” I surmised, my heart hesitating. “Yeh, about vour age.” “ A sister?’’ I continued, hope and fear battling in my bosom. ‘‘ Well, she said she'd be one to me if the worse come to the not so good.” “Ah ha,” gulped I, flashing a brave, bright beamer, however, ‘‘ imitation ivory is just the thing for a gent to hand his flancce.”’ He looked at me, amused, outa the cor- ner of his merry blue eves, but didn’t say nothing. “When love is genuine,” I concluded. ‘‘jmitations don’t matter.” “Say,” he said, smiling quizzical, ‘you're some little philosopher: ” ‘Them that deals with joshers has got to be philosophers,” I answered, hurt by something I couldn't put my finger on, no more than an itch between the shoulder blades. Of a sudden he grabbed hold of my palm. ‘* Sav, I bet you're a lonely little devil!” he exclaimed, impulsive. “Devils ain’t lonely,” J choked. the angels.” “ Don’t vou ever go out no place?” he inquired, solicitous. ‘To the corner drug store and the dairy lunch.” “What do vou buy at the drug store and what do vou eat at the lunch?” he cross-examined me, boyish vet masterful. “ Tar soap and shredded wheat.” ‘“‘ Great!” he laughed, gleeful. ‘If you had said lipstick and chocolate éclairs I would of thought vou was spoofing about being lonely. But being the psychologist I am, I knows that nothing spells Joneliness like tar soap and shredded wheat.” ‘Now, do you want a round mirror with the set, or oblong?” I resumed my sales- * An old lady, “It’s 879 manship. huffy at thinking he was kidding me. He bent close. “Any kind—that will mirror life to you -—as it Is,’’ he whispered. ‘IT guess a square one’s the best, then,” I mused, thoughtful. “You kid, vou!’’ he muttered, terrify- ingly sudden and so earnest my throat trembled like a tuning fork when you strike the right note. I fingered the ivory, preoccupied. Levi's look was on me. “What ’re vou going to take?” I asked. short. ‘‘ La Belle or La Paris?” His eyes was steady and very brown. ‘““T've decided I won't get none at all,” he said, slow. ‘‘ I’m taking something with me instead that ain’t no imitation—and it’s for myself.” He whipped off his hat and smiled a smile that lit up his face like Broadway on a Saturday night. “But I'll be back for more!” he prom- ised, and went. Old II. THAT night, wending my way to the homeward subway, my feet was almost winged, and the spring sunset that shim- mered over the city seemed like the glitter- ing gold curtain of a swell vaudeville act. And when I jammed myself into that underground cattle car, and won, by right of knee and elbow, a choice position against an ambitious guy who was trying to eat peanuts and losing half of ’em in the brim of a jane’s hat that was tucked like a bib under his chin—I actually rejoiced in that sweet. close contact with my fellow men. For the roaring, snoring old subway seemed like a train de luxe straight to paradise. In the three evening nours before flop- ping into the ferns, them three precious hours that stands out like bright streamers on the unending wheel of drab industry, I dreamed dreams that seemed almost real. He said he would be back! I excavated a gay string of beads from the bottom bureau drawer that mom used to love to don when pop wasn’t looking. Red for romance! I’d wear them wrapped three times around my neck where thev'd Conn GIOok